FROM 2012 INTO 2013 POLITICS THREAD

BigCircus, in all seriousness, the guy is a weasel and a scoundrel.
But you have to wonder how sound a few of our institutions are if a drama queen like this can pull one over on the government and elude it for going on three weeks. We look like clowns in the international intelligence community.

 

It's all good...I didn't mean to put words in your mouth and apologize if you took it that way. I thought you were directly responding to my post.

 

o, so mad bro. feeling schooled by by your skillz.

You must have taken lessons from dog eat dog, who sees the world as it truly is.

 

I truly don't know how to feel about the guy. There's part of me that likes that he exposed certain things about the government, but it's hard to know what his motivation was. I don't know if he's a traitor and I don't consider him a hero. I think the true answer is probably a very complicated one and one we may never know. I think all news outlets are drinking the same kool-aid on this one and if you're any administration you're spinning this as "he's working with the Chinese" or "he's working with the Russians" and while that may be true, I'm taking a very cynical approach on believing anything I read about this guy...

 

Oh, I know we're not as far off as some others in the debate. I just get fed up with the demonization of the other side that dominates so much of the political discussion, not just on this thread. Every time somebody starts to type "All liberals...." or "All conservatives..." you know some idiotic, over-generalized, divisive and useless statement is about to follow.

 

Here's what I keep coming back to...since the story broke and he entered the public eye, I can't think of a single thing he's done that's enhanced his credibility instead of damaging it. The more he says, the less reason I can think of to believe him.

 

As a friend of mine said today:

 

Any government that isn't spying on other countries is failing its own people. Why anyone is surprised by the information that's been leaked on overseas intelligence gathering is beyond me. We do it and so does every other country on the planet. It's not pretty and it's not a game for gentleman. If Snowden broke the law to leak information that damaged our ability to spy overseas, he needs to be tried and punished.

The flip side is that he also revealed that the current occupant of the White House appears to be more concerned with spying on his domestic political opponents than doing his fucking job - part of which is to protect and defend this country against foreign enemies.

A question that needs to be asked is why the fuckwits in this administration didn't suspend Snowden's passport on June 14 - the day they filed the complaint against him, if not the day his story appeared in the Guardian. That would have prevented the giant Where's Waldo situation we're seeing now.

 

This is one of the best things that's been posted on this thread in some time.

 

Agreed, but you have to know the guy was going to be eviscerated as soon as he outed himself. Has he been interviewed since then?

I don't see Snowden as a martyr or as someone who acted in good faith, but I would love to know what his motivation was for doing what he did. Maybe he is a spy and a traitor, but why did he do it?

It will be interesting to see what the long term impact of this is.

 

Are you sure his passport wasn't suspended?

 

Snowden is a traitor.
But so were our Founding Fathers, technically.
So is Obama for betraying the lemmings whom he promised things.
These sorts tend to flock together.
I don't give two figs what happens to him, but he shouldn't be painted as a seer.
He's a Jason Bourne wannabe with a grudge. You get the sense he is enjoying this.